It's Snowing Books!

It's snowing books on my desk this week! The Holy Spirit must have released the gift of writing on us about two years back and now we're seeing the fruit of all that hard work. Interestingly, these latest books are in women's voices after a long string of books I've received written by the men in our movement. They range from The Journey Out by Gretchen Flores, working off of the Parable of the Sower to give wise counsel on some of the stuff that gets us like perfectionism, worry, victimhood and more; to Rhythms of Renewal by Letitia Suk which speaks of Renewal, Repentance, Restoration and several more health-giving Rs and on to the latest one, The Coffee Mom's Devotional by Celeste Palermo geared toward the real issues moms face every day. I've also received number of scholarly papers to read and comment on by women on subjects related to women and leadership, which is the answer to a long-held prayer of mine that God would stir up scholars within our movement. The stack next to my bed toppled over and came down on me last night!

What struck me about all this is that God has called the women in our movement to be open-handed with whatever he gives them to give away, and it is a real joy to see signs of that popping up all over. I was at the Great Lakes Region women's conference in Columbus last week, and was struck by the diversity of things God has put on women's hearts - everything from healing of hearts, minds and bodies to working to stop human trafficking to practical care for other women and children who are the modern-day widows and orphans to getting their PhDs so they could be a part of making a big impact for racial reconciliation to struggling with all the musical elements to craft new songs that say something unique and have that intangible quality that makes them easy for a congregation to sing.

All this represents a lot of women saying a lot of individual yes's to Jesus, and probably rearranging their priorities to make space for these books, these ministries, these songs to emerge. As I think of all of you out there, I am wondering about the draft notices God is sending out to each of you. In the next blog, we'll explore a little bit about how you recognize a call, and what kinds of things you might do next to make room for it. But in the meantime, if you dare, please write and talk a little about this. What has God done in you that he wants to do through you? What has He been talking to you about investing your life in? How are you making space for that to happen? What issues are you bumping up against?